Presenter Karla Grant 'shocked' after being questioned by police in Alice Springs while buying alcohol

One of Australia's most prominent Indigenous television hosts has opened up about discrimination during her career, saying she was racially targeted as recently as two weeks ago by police in the Northern Territory.

Key points:

The host of SBS show Living Black says she was stopped by police who treated her like a "grog runner"

The alleged incident occurred in Alice Springs, where Grant was filming a show

She says an officer demanded ID from her but not from a non-Indigenous colleague

Karla Grant — the long-time host of SBS show Living Black — detailed the incident on Friday morning during the Women In Media national conference on the Gold Coast, where she appeared as a guest speaker.

The Adelaide-born media personality also revealed her career stalled early on, and she had to wait several years to get a job in the media after a bad experience.

Grant said she was recently in Alice Springs filming a documentary on a women's choir from Vanuatu, when she was stopped by a police officer who thought she was illegally buying alcohol to re-sell.

Grant said the incident occurred after a long day of filming when she and a non-Indigenous colleague went to get "a bottle of wine and a couple of beers" to have with dinner at a nearby restaurant.

"We walked into this BWS and there was a police officer, a female police officer, right at the entrance," Grant told the ABC.

"She focused in on me and said 'have you got any ID? where are you staying?'

"I was so shocked and she didn't ask for my producer's ID, she just asked me, she really focused in on me."